GNV News, October 13, 2024

A study published in PLOS ONE revealed that cocoa cultivation in the Congo Basin, the world’s largest carbon sink, is associated with up to seven times more deforestation than other agricultural activities. Among farmers, the cultivation of cash crops is expected to be highly profitable due in part to rising global cocoa prices, driving farmland expansion. However, clearing is advancing even into less productive land, leading to deforestation. In addition, trading companies and major chocolate manufacturers capture most of the profits from chocolate production, and there are observations that cocoa farmers earn only 6% of the price of a single chocolate bar.

Deforestation is worsening beyond cocoa production as well. According to a report released by the Forest Declaration Platform network, 6.37 million hectares of forest were lost worldwide in 2023. This exceeds by 45% the reduction level needed to meet the pledge to halt global deforestation by 2030. The same report states that nearly 96% of total deforestation occurred in tropical regions. It also notes that clearing of tropical forests released about 3.7 billion tons of CO2-equivalent in 2023. In addition to agricultural activities, drivers of deforestation include road construction, fires, and commercial logging.

Learn more about the issues behind chocolate → “Chocolate: The Unreported ‘Bitter’ Reality”

Learn more about illegal logging → “Illegal logging is encroaching into the untouched heart of the Amazon: ‘Alarming’ study finds”

Cocoa farmer, Cameroon (Photo: CIFOR-ICRAF / Flickr [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0])